Dufrenoya Chatin

Shrubby semiparasitic on trunks and branches of host trees, with spreading erect or twining branches, monoecious or dioecious. Leaves alternate, simple, palmately 5 – 9-veined from base, exstipulate, coriaceous. Flowers very minute, axillary or solitary, monochlamydous. Male flowers: sessile or in short peduncled clusters; perianth-tube free; lobes 5 or 6, triangular; disc circular; stamens 5 or 6, inserted at the bases or middle of the perianth-lobes; anthersdidymous. Female flowers: solitary or clustered; perianth adnate to the ovary; staminodes sterile or absent; ovary inferior, obovoid; ovules 2 or 3; style minute; stigma subsessile, discoid or lobed. Fruits drupaceous, fleshy, ovoid, obovoid, ellipsoid or subglobose; seed stellately lobed; embryo linear.

Subtropical and tropical regions of India, China and Malesia, ca 14 species; 4 species in India.

Literature. MALHOTRA, C., BALODI, B. & S. SINGH (1988). Two little known plants from western Himalaya. J. Econ. Taxon. Bot. 12: 237 - 240.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1 a. Young branches distinctly angled; stigma subsessil

2. Dufrenoya platyphylla

b. Young branches distinctly terete or irregularly longitudinally fissured; stigma sessile

2

2 a. Flowers pedicellate; internodes irregularly and longitudinally fissured

4. Dufrenoya sessilis

b. Flowers sessile; internodes not fissured

3

3 a. Leaves elliptic-ovate to obovate with distinct petioles

1. Dufrenoya granulata

b. Leaves broadly ovate; petioles indistinct

3. Dufrenoya robusta

List of Lower Taxa